Life in a Care Home CAN be filled with little luxuries

Many Care Homes are now focusing on offering their residents an indulgent experience – and why not.  Living in a Care Home should be able to mean wonderful food, lovely surroundings, company and care on hand and little pampers such as hairdressing, cinema rooms and spa-like bathrooms. 

Person centered care focuses on what the individual resident needs and wants in order to live their life as independently and fully as possible, and this should be at the heart of every care home’s offer. Understanding what is important to each individual is critical for supporting them in the best possible way. Matching daily routines that have been part of a person’s life for years will help a person to feel at home in a new environment. Inversely, expecting a new resident to fit in with a Care Home routine does little to help them to settle.

Prof Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive of Care England, recently said in an article on innovating and developing care to enable people to live their lives:

“There is often much talk about the quality of services, but in truth, what people want is a quality life, and we need to shift the agenda in social care away from thinking about services and processes and start reminding ourselves that people need to live well, rather than receive care. This is not easy to achieve. It requires us to think creatively about how we deliver support and very intricate knowledge of the person and their likes, preferences, and desires. Only when we understand the person can we start to construct truly personalised support.”

At Astor Bannerman, we are passionate about developing products that do just that – support people to continue to live their lives well.

We are also passionate about bathing.  There are so many therapeutic advantages to bathing as well as offering a more relaxing and dignified experience in a care situation. We are sometimes told that showering is chosen over bathing as it is considered the safer option for the carer.  However, with the right equipment, bathing can be a safer option, and if bathing has formed a part of a person’s daily routine within their life, removing that option in a Care Home is very detrimental.  Astor Bannerman have a number of different solutions that address the issue of how to safely enter a bath.  The most common is using our powered detachable transfer seat – an integral part of the Astor Compact Range:

The seat will safely and comfortably transfer the bather from a seated position out of the bath, up, round and down into the bath in one smooth motion. In addition, with the optional detachable transfer seat, a less mobile resident can be assisted to undress in the dignity and security of their own room, transfer onto the seat attached to the transfer trolley, drape a dressing gown around them, and then be wheeled from their bedroom to the bathroom.  Without and further manual handling requirements, the seat can be attached to the bath seat post ready to be directly and smoothly transferred into the bath.

Another option for those able to side transfer is the Astor Motion bath.  The large doorway gives lip free access enabling bathers to side transfer.  A large prefilled footwell, combined with a quick fill system ensures that a bather can be quickly immersed in water post entering the bath.

There is a further range of lifting equipment offering basic standing support through to a full overhead ceiling hoist, depending on the support needs of the individual.

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Astor Bannerman design products to look and feel like home.  It is important to us to offer bathers a desired experience, and our products are crafted to fit into beautiful bathrooms.  We believe that with all the pressures of offering personal care, a luxury bath in an inspirationally designed room will help to offer an enhanced and desirable experience, easing the potential resistance of the bather, and making the experience more pleasurable for both bather and carer.

And to make it even mor special, our baths come with an option of an led light system, air spa and Bluetooth sound system, turning a relaxing bath into a truly spa-like experience.

Astor Bannerman are leading designers, manufacturers and installers of specialist bathroom and patient handing equipment. We have been working with our clients and providing considered solutions for 30 years, and manufacture our extensive range in the Cotswolds, UK and Germany producing beautiful and desirable products that not only address support needs, but that look and feel like home.